Shadows in Scarlet

by Carl, Lillian Stewart

  And it was just about Sally’s size. The hemline hit well above Amanda’s ankles, which Norah camouflaged with a long ruffled petticoat. And the waist was impossibly small, even after Amanda squeezed her rib cage into a Victorian-era corset. Great. If she hyperventilated and fainted somebody, possibly herself, might die. Maybe it was just as well the dress stank of mothballs. She was carrying smelling salts around with her.

  Amanda poked at her tiny ribboned cap. It didn’t quite hide her short hair, but the sausage-like fake curls hanging from it confused the issue. Which was the point of this drill anyway.

  “What do you think?” Norah shoved one last pin into the frayed edge of a ruffle and sat back on her heels.

  Amanda flicked open her fan and fluttered it back and forth. Its carved ivory had yellowed with age, but its bindings seemed sturdy enough for the evening’s masquerade. “Fie, sir, would you have me credit such flatteries? Venus herself would blush to be so addressed.” She snapped the fan shut and tapped it flirtatiously against her reflection.

  “Well done,” said Norah with a laugh. “That’s similar to the dress Isabel described. But you know men, they don’t remember that sort of detail. Especially after two hundred years.” She started piling pins and spools of thread back into her sewing basket. “Alex and I used to hold costume parties. That’s why we still have the old clothes. I simply can’t bring myself to throw them out.” She closed the basket and stood up. Her expression balanced on a razor’s edge between fear and resolve.

  Amanda gave her a hug. “It’ll be all right.”

  “So it will,” Norah replied, and hugged her back.

  Footsteps came down the hall. Margaret and Denis looked up from their nests on Norah’s canopied bed, ears moving front to back to front again like furry radar dishes. “Mum? Amanda? Are you decent?” Malcolm peered around the door.

  As one, Norah and Amanda exhaled.

  “Lassie, you look a treat,” Malcolm said. “Pretty enough to raise the dead.”

  She curtsied. “Thank you, kind sir. But I must ask you to guard your tongue, as those japeries you might find amusing could well serve to dismay some members of our party.”

  “Don’t worry yourself,” said Norah. “He’d make jokes on his way to …”

  The gallows? Amanda finished for her. Thanks.

  Norah grimaced. “You go on ahead, I’ll catch you up.”

  “May I?” Malcolm offered Amanda his arm. She tucked her hand beneath the reassuring warmth of his sweater. Together they walked out into the lengthening shadows of the corridor. “It’s getting on for sunset at last,” he said.

  “I’ve never had a day last this long,” Amanda returned.

  “Oh aye. I was expectin’ to hear doom crackin’ any moment.” He crushed her arm against his side. “I found the song you were quotin’ me on a CD. I thought I recognized it.”

  “Really? Is it sung in Gaelic?”

  “That it is. A woman’s voice, a cross between a siren and a banshee.”

  “Just the right sound effect, then.” This is going to work. It is.

  “Wayne’s in the hall,” Malcolm went on. “He’s a sight.”

  Whoa, Amanda thought. It was deja vu all over again. Here she was walking through an old house with her waist encased in a cage, fabric floating at her ankles, hoping she wouldn’t say something dumb. But instead of an elegant Georgian staircase she stepped carefully down a muscular medieval spiral stair. Instead of a wood-paneled parlor with spindly furniture she walked into a stone-walled great hall, its furnishings larger than life.

  Darkness disguised the beams of the ceiling. The flags hung limp and lifeless. The lights made delicate glowing circles across the floor but left the corners dim. A fire burned in the fireplace, looking as puny as a match on the vast hearth. Shadows licked up the chimney and across the floor. An odor of smoke and mildew and mothballs hung on the air.

  An apparition in a scarlet coat rose from behind the massive sideboard and its display of pewter. Amanda guffawed. “Wayne, that’s enough to make George Washington spin in his grave.”

  Wayne struck a pose imitating the father of his country crossing the Delaware, although his scarlet coat, gold trim, white breeches, and black boots suited British commander Cornwallis, not the upstart Washington. As Amanda got closer she saw that the gold trim was tarnished brass, the boots were a spray-painted brown, and the scarlet coat was threadbare. But with a curled white wig around his ruddy face, Wayne did look vaguely like Archibald must have looked that fateful evening at Melrose. Well, without the kilt, but even if Wayne had agreed to wear one he probably would’ve gotten tangled up in it or it would’ve fallen off at a critical moment.

  “It was like the ceremonial clothin’ o’ the matador,” Malcolm told Amanda.

  “But a bull would have two sharp points instead of just one,” Wayne said. “The CD player’s plugged in and set to the right track.”

  “Super. Where’s the dog?”

  “Oh. He needed to go outside. I left the front door open.”

  With a pat Malcolm released Amanda’s hand and stepped to the door. “Cerberus! Here boy!” A distant woof replied. “Half a tick,” Malcolm said, and hurried off down the stairs.

  Wayne and Amanda looked gravely at each other. “We’ve done this before,” she told him.

  “Well, sort of. Did you see anything flying around today?”

  “No. He’s keeping a low profile.”

  “Probably hoarding his strength.”

  “Great.”

  Cerberus bounded into the room, Malcolm on his tail. Norah walked in carrying an indignant cat under each arm. She set them down on the floor. Malcolm beckoned her toward the sideboard and explained about switching on the CD player. She nodded. Not that you needed to explain anything to Norah. No wonder Malcolm was so bright.

  The dog ambled sociably from person to person. The cats sat down, their expressions set in world-weary boredom. The humans paced back and forth, shifted and sighed.

  The windows faded from gray to black. Dundreggan Castle was so silent Amanda wondered if she’d gone deaf. When the fire cracked, a log fell, and sparks flew, everyone jumped. Malcolm hefted another log behind the andirons, and with bellows and poker from the nearby rack teased it into flame.

  “Come on, come on,” said Wayne under his breath.

  The fire gleaming in his eyes, Malcolm climbed on a chair and detached a Lochaber axe from one of the displays. He propped the six-foot long pole with its wide, curved head, part axe, part spear, against the corner of the fireplace and melted into the shadows beside the mantel.

  Amanda breathed out, breathed in, breathed out. Her ribs hurt. She felt like her forehead was bulging. Contents under pressure.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Wayne muttered.

  Amanda breathed in. “James,” she whispered into the silence, “when you’re with me you’re strong.”

  The words of the mantra hovered invisibly in the air. One heartbeat, two, and the glow of the lights dimmed, so slightly Amanda thought she’d imagined it except Wayne, too, looked up.

  A cold draft sent smoke swirling through the air. The flags rippled. Denis and Margaret sat up, ears alert, whiskers flared. Cerberus barked, short and sharp.

  Wayne straightened his shoulders and set his chin. Except this time his expression wasn’t childishly stubborn but firm, tenacious, mature. So what if sweat was breaking out on his forehead. He sure got points for style.

  In the shadows by the hearth Malcolm was standing very straight, hands on hips, jaw tight, in a bestriding-the-globe stance. In the shadows next to the sideboard, Norah folded her arms. Her blue eyes were a determined glitter.

  A glitter like the one forming in the center of the room. Denis and Margaret hissed, clawed, yowled, and made tracks for the doorway. Barking furiously, Cerberus backed from the room. His barks echoed from the stairwell, faded to a distant whine, then stilled.

  The lights dimmed further, shading to an odd tint of blue
. “Ladies and gentlemen,” whispered Wayne, “start your engines.”

  The glitter solidified into the brass hilt of a sword. A sheathed sword, Amanda noted with relief. A sword sheathed in two scabbards, one transparent perfection, the other warped and corroded, like James’s image of himself shadowed by the reality.

  The shoulder belt with its silver fittings appeared out of nothingness. The draped kilt. The scarlet jacket. And finally James’s face, looking suspiciously around him. He knows we’re up to something, Amanda thought. Not that he was going to come rushing in, not after last night.

  His eyes fell on Amanda and Wayne standing side by side. His brows tightened and his lips thinned. His hand grasped the hilt of the sword. But he showed no more uncertainty than that.

  Let’s do it. Amanda curtsied and flipped open her fan. “Good evening, Captain Grant. Your cousin Lieutenant Grant has been acquainting me with your exploits upon the field of battle.”

  Wayne bowed. “James, my good man, you will be pleased to know I have omitted certain of those exploits from my account, those that would be unfit for the ear of a lady of good breeding.”

  James returned the bow, curtly. But his eyes were gleaming slits, like those of a cat in reflected light. “So, Archibald, that, too, was a lie. You are not gone. The words that fall from a woman’s lips are like dew, quickly dried.” He frowned at Amanda. But he wasn’t sure who she was—Sally? Isabel? Amanda herself?

  She raised the fan coyly, hiding her mouth and chin. “Lieutenant Grant, your cousin’s every aspect is one of courage and fortitude. I confess myself amazed by the glow of his appearance, like Phoebus overturned by Apollo’s chariot. It is too much, I shall swoon, I place my trust in your hands.” She swayed, just enough to lean against Wayne’s side, just enough so he had to put his arm around her to steady her.

  “Now James,” said Wayne, with the perfect priggish inflection, “respecting the ladies you must take care, upon my word, weak as they are they cannot tolerate such advances as you make, but are obliged to find them improper. Allow me to acquaint you with the proper means of dealing with the fairer sex.”

  Scowling, James stepped forward, his steps ringing on the floor, metal clanking at his waist. “And what foolishness is this, that mewling and puking Archibald should know the whys and wherefores of womanhood? Unhand the lady, you dog, and stand away.”

  Over Wayne’s shoulder Amanda saw Malcolm edging forward, the axe in his hand. Briskly she fanned her face, the fan creaking almost like the creaking of the floor beneath Malcolm’s—well, he was wearing sneakers, wasn’t he? “Captain Grant, I am undone by your potency, I beg you, be gentle with me.” She stepped away from Wayne and extended her hand limply toward James.

  Shit! He kept his left hand fixed on the sword, ready to boost its hilt into his right. He caught her fingers and pressed them, his grasp tenuous and yet so cold a shudder ran up her arm. Between her corset and the reek of decay Amanda’s head spun. She batted her lashes, ordering herself to stay alert.

  “So, then, Madame,” James said, “you show unwonted wisdom for a woman. But you must wait upon my return. I have unfinished business with this man, with whom I am so unfortunate as to share a name.” He edged her to the side—saving dessert for later—released her hand and took another step toward Wayne.

  Amanda didn’t dare look toward Malcolm. She opened and shut the fan so fast part of its binding broke and one slat dangled loose.

  Wayne shriveled, shoulders curling, head hanging. “My most humble apologies, cousin, if I have offended you. You are, as in all other respects, quite correct in your estimation of my abilities. I know nothing of womanhood—nay, I insult the very presence of a lady with my clumsiness.” Either the strange bluish light or his own fear made his jowls look green.

  James smiled. Amanda flinched—she’d seen that smile the night before, up close and personal. “James,” she cooed, “my dearest, I yearn for the strength of your arms. Please, he is not worth your troubling yourself, return to me.”

  James ignored her. The sword hissed from the scabbard—it couldn’t fit in the real one, and yet the undamaged scabbard wasn’t real, so how could it hiss… . That didn’t matter now.

  Light flowed down the blade as James moved it back and forth in front of Wayne’s bulging eyes, a hypnotist waving a gold watch in front of his victim’s face. “Shall we have it out, then, cousin? Shall we carry it to the grave, and then beyond? It is too late for the apology. Much too late.”

  He spat the last words. His eyes blazed. He lunged.

  Amanda leaped forward. The seams of her dress ripped open. Wayne dived to the side and fell down hard. His wig went flying.

  Malcolm stopped tiptoeing and ran.

  James raised the sword over Wayne’s cowering form. Wayne yelped and scrabbled backwards like an upended turtle. A pewter goblet came flying from the shadows behind the sideboard, skimmed so close to James’s face he jerked back, then clanged against the wall and onto the floor.

  “Sorry,” Malcolm said, and shoved Amanda so hard she went sprawling. A dull iron gleam darted horizontally above her head. The concave side of the axe head connected with the scabbard at James’s side and knocked it clattering away. As the blade passed through his insubstantial body, James himself shredded into streamers of scarlet and tartan, then formed again. Wayne scrambled to his feet.

  James glanced around at Malcolm, his handsome face contorting into something less recognizable as human than his skull, and turned back to Wayne. “So, Archibald, this is a trick! Such as I would expect of you, not man enough to fight face to face, honorably, but enlisting this scurvy dog to do your work!” The sword flashed.

  But Wayne was already scuttling toward the door, gasping, “I beg of you, the quality of mercy is not strained, to be or not to be, a name by any other rose… .”

  James leaped after him, then stopped dead and spun around.

  Too late. Grasping the shaft of the axe in his right hand, Malcolm scooped up the scabbard with his left. He sprinted for the fireplace and with an echoing clank he threw the scabbard onto the stone hearth. “Here it is, James! Come and get it!”

  “No!” James shouted.

  Malcolm raised the axe and with the sharp crack of metal on stone brought it down on the scabbard. Amanda thought of James’s great-grandfather Simon Fraser meeting his maker on Tower Hill, going to his reward on the blade of an axe.

  The scabbard was in two pieces. Malcolm hit it again. Three.

  Strong hands—Norah’s—heaved Amanda to her feet. Black spots swam before her eyes and another set of seams gave way. The bellows! She shook Norah away and raced toward the hearth. “Throw it in the fire, Malcolm!”

  Malcolm threw the pieces of the scabbard into the depths of the flames.

  “No!” James shouted again, on a higher, more desperate note. He ran toward the fireplace, sword raised.

  Malcolm spun around, parrying James’s blow with the long handle of the axe.

  Amanda seized the bellows and started pumping for all she was worth, her wheezing lungs filling with smoke, her eyes running, her face burning hot. The flames leaped, chasing shadows up the stone walls. The acrid smell of hot metal filled the air. In the scarlet heart of the fire the pieces of the scabbard darkened, blacker and blacker, until they took on a color deeper than red—scarlet, crimson, dried blood.

  James shrieked in mortal pain, the cry he’d never had a chance to make at the moment of his death. Amanda glanced over her shoulder. The sword licked up and down, slower now, like it was getting heavier or James’s hand weaker… . Their plan was working.

  Malcolm danced aside, the axe handle horizontal between his hands, just far enough to deflect the blows, not far enough to leave Amanda’s back unprotected.

  Wayne slipped along the mantelpiece behind Malcolm. Picking up the poker, he smashed it again and again onto the chunks of metal that had been the scabbard, sending up clouds of sparks and soot. The dull thuds reverberated from the high ceiling.
>
  Levering herself on his shoulder, Amanda stood up. She squinted dizzily through the dim blue-tinted light of the room. James’s form thinned and swayed. Through his transparent chest and the silver thistle of the 71st regiment the door made a rectangular shape like a coffin. Still he held the sword upright, but his thrusts at Malcolm were slow and weak.

  The thuds of the poker stopped. Amanda’s breath rasped. James, gasping for his own ephemeral breath, backed off and lowered the sword. His scowl faded, leaving his face blank with exhaustion, lips parted, eyes half-closed. He raised his free hand. His voice was a wisp of sound. “Madame, whoever you may be, do not cast me out!”

  Since when had it been up to her? Amanda bit her lip, hard. She saw him sitting wearily on the staircase. She saw him peeling off layer after layer of his uniform beside her bed. She saw him smiling at her, his sword at her breast, while she cowered on the windowsill.

  Pulling away her cap and curls and dumping them on the floor, she dredged her memory—“Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts; shut not thy merciful ears to our prayers.”

  From the far corner of the room rose a woman’s voice, singing, “An ciaradh m’fheasgair mo bheath’ air claoidh, mo rosg air dunadh’s a’ bhas gun chli …” The words swelled up and out, twining about the beams of the ceiling, making the flags and the tapestries shiver. O westwards take me, and quietly lay me, in Aignish graveyard above the sea.

  Malcolm grounded the butt of the axe. “Sorry, cousin, but Dundreggan graveyard above the Moriston will have to do.”

  “Amanda,” said James, his face twisting in agony, “Amanda, my sweet, I am confounded… .” In the scarlet mist that was his body only his eyes were distinct, his eyes and the length of the sword. Slowly, with terrible effort, he extended the sword, hilt first, toward her.

  She stepped forward, shaking off first Wayne’s, then Malcolm’s hands. She took the icy hilt of the sword just as James’s hand thinned into nothingness. For a long moment she held his eyes, two anguished blue gleams against the blue-tinted shadows. Then they, too, faded away. A long moan, part groan, part sigh, filled the room and then slowly, achingly, ebbed into nothingness.